Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892–1927) is one of the foundational figures of modern Japanese literature — the master of the short story in a tradition that has always valued the form, and the author of works so perfect in their construction and so disturbing in their implications that they remain freshly read nearly a century after his death. Born in Tokyo, he was a man of immense learning and equally immense neurosis, and the two qualities fed each other throughout his short life; he died by suicide at thirty-five.

His most celebrated works — Rashomon, In a Grove (the story that inspired Kurosawa's film), The Nose, Hell Screen, Kappa — are stories of moral ambiguity, self-deception, and the terrible impossibility of knowing what is true. In a Grove, in which the same events are narrated by several witnesses in contradictory ways, is one of the most influential short fictions of the twentieth century. The Akutagawa Prize, Japan's most prestigious award for new literary talent, bears his name.